Thursday, May 21, 2009

Buy American

The Mayor of Warren, MI, wants the city to buy American. He's beholden to the large US Automakers, with plants from GM and Chrysler in his town.

Calling it "economic and consumer patriotism," the mayor of Warren, Michigan wants to make it compulsory for city officials to buy American cars. Jim Fouts says that 15% of his fiscal budget depends on the auto industry, and the city's two most lucrative tax payers are General Motors and Chrysler. Therefore, in order to support the folks who support the town -- and in turn, take care of the taxpayer -- he's trying to expand the order he gave last year that required his appointees to Buy American.

So, we wonder what he means by Buy American?

My Honda Goldwing was built in Marysville, OH. Ohio is certainly American.

My buddy's Mercedes-Benz was built in Alabama. Last time I looked, Alabama was in the USA.

Toyota makes vehicles in Mississippi, Texas, Indiana, Alabama, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Sounds like those are American states too.

Subaru has a plant in Indiana. They make Toyota Camrys there. Last time I looked, Indiana was American.

What the mayor means is that he wants his folks to buy Chrysler or GM vehicles. As for the rest of them, those are Americans building those things in America for Americans. Buy American meant something 40 years ago. Nowadays, it's code speak for Support the Unions.

3 comments:

Rich Jordan
said...

I don't know if my info is current but it used to be that buying foreign brand cars made in the US didn't do much except for the workers themselves, and by extension the economy of the area near the plant(s); the parent companies worked the books so no profits showed up in the US books; it all came back to the parent company with the US subsidiaries just 'squeaking by' or even losing money.

I'm no fan of unions, especially one as corrupt and self serving as the UAW. Nor do I follow the 'paying too much in taxes is patriotic!' Obama dogma. But its possible that more money, more of the 'cascade of money' from a US company car sale will remain in the US than buying a Mercedes or Honda.

If his people were smart, they'd start tendering their resignations immediately. The idea that your boss can dictate what car you purchase is repulsive.

But then again, they're all politicians. They're probably too busy trying to destroy jimmy in accounting for driving a Camry made in Indiana, while hoping that no one notices that their Avalanche was built in Mexico.

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